Ballad of the Nameless Soldier
by Rigo Senhedro
Summary: Not every soldier in the war have had their stories told. This story follows a group of Class First Agito Cadets and how they view the war from their perspective, and their interaction with Class Zero and other characters.
1. Chapter I

**Three Hours that Changed the World**

Kazuki was woken up by the sound of explosions. Something was going on. Naomi raised her head from the pillow in her bed right across from when Kazuki was lying. "What's going on?" Kazuki heard her say. "I don-" he was interrupted by Ren storming into the dorm, "Milites is attacking us!" he shouted. "What!?" both Kazuki and Naomi said in tandem. Kazuki sat up in bed and bent his head so he could see the window. Clearly he could see three huge imperial dreadnoughts with their horrifying cannons and White Tiger symbols painted all over the looming ship. The cannons fired again, and again he heard explosions that could only mean a conflict was starting. "Oh no.." Naomi muttered and Kazuki could see she was about to have a panic attack. Seconds later the alarm rang, and both Naomi and Kazuki threw on their uniforms before dashing out of the room with Ren.

They were all members of Class First, the most talented class of the twelve Agito Cadet classes. Each and every class had their respective role, and all shared the same black and red uniform, the only way to distinguish one class from the others was that all cadets wore a short scarf around their necks, and the color of the scarf depended on what class the cadet was in. These three had their scarfs colored light blue.

The trio quickly found themselves in the main hall of Akademeia, their magic academy. Everything was at chaos, they could see cadets from all classes as well as "Legionaries", the standard soldier in Rubrum. Unlike soldiers, the cadets were not trained for war but to be symbolic guardians of the Vermilion Bird Crystal, and only be used in war under extreme circumstances. This seemed to be one of those circumstances, as everyone was storming out from the building. Kazuki, Ren and Naomi decided to follow the stream and ran with them, past the thirteen-hour clock that showed it was still morning and Kazuki recalled that the date was Aquamensis XII 842 RG. Once out of the academy they had a view of the garden, where a fountain used to stand, but now it was blown to pieces.

Akademeia was the name for both the capital city of the Dominion of Rubrum, and the magic academy that trained Agito Cadets. The city was built upon an island only connected to the mainland, Orience, by a long bridge in the north. The island Akademeia was build on was actually a very steep mountain, but it had been carved down so the bridge touched upon flat ground with the main city, but on the sides of the city that didn't connect to the bridge there were hills going up, giving a somewhat tall wall around southern parts of the city and on the very south point the hill wasn't carved down at all, because on the top were the academy, with a lookout that could see the entire island and the bridge. That's where Kazuki, Naomi and Ren were standing right now together with hundreds of other cadets and legionaries, and the numbers pooled up.

Not long after, most of the cadets - including our trio - were standing on the top of a broad staircase that was the main street, having taken the teleporter from the top of Akademeia to the main city. Cadets had established a base on the southern end of the main street, and imperial soldiers were rushing in from the north, being dropped off the dreadnaughts with Magitek Armors, or MAs, terrifying battle armors piloted by imperial engineers. The cadets on the southern end had conjured their most famous defensive spell, Wall, a simple spell that put up a transparent light blue wall that could be used as cover, but didn't last very long. Cadets that weren't focusing their power on fixing the barriers as they got shattered by fire from imperial troops were firing offensive spells towards the endless mass of soldiers that came running up. It was a terrible sight. "What about the people living in the city?" Kazuki heard Naomi cry. "Couldn't the imperials let them evacuate first?" It was true, the northern parts of the city that was so-to-say under imperial occupation was all on fire, and it's not to be taken for granted that people made it out, or wasn't killed in the crossfire. "Ren, what do we do?" Kazuki called out to his group leader, but he received no reply. "Ren?" Kazuki looked around in all the chaos, but couldn't spot his leader anywhere. Kazuki was an orphan, and didn't have a care in the world for anyone outside his class, but Naomi must have been terrified about her parents and younger sister. And Ren… he never talked about his personal life. Just as Kazuki called out to Ren, he could see five cadets from Class Second running towards the frontline, which was the main street of Akademeia, indigo scarves flickering around their necks. They paused just behind one of the Wall spells and held hands in a circle. A magic glyph appeared under their feet and everyone nearby backed off, and seconds later the five of them fell dead over. A heroic sacrifice, summoning an Eidolon required such a huge amount of magical power, most of the time it killed the summoners. A few skilled summoners could summon Eidolons without dying, some even managing to stay conscious after the act, but regardless of that it took a large toll on the body. Being part of a summoning squad was therefore signing up a suicide pact. The Eidolon summoned this time was Bahamut, one of the strongest Eidolons in existence. Summoning this Eidolon alone was impossible for any known summoner. Bahamut was a huge wyvern, and from where the Class Second cadets had stood moments before, he rose up, black clawed wings lifting him into the air where he became a target for dreadnought cannon fire. This didn't hurt Bahamut the slightest, and with a roar he opened his mouth and let out a beam that penetrated the dreadnought, sending it crashing into the sea. When Kazuki saw one of the magic barriers falling and the respective magician falling exhausted to the ground, he rushed over to replace him, dragged him out of the way and was about to conjure Wall himself when someone else did it for him. A cadet with a pink scarf - a Class Seventh cadet - had taken his place while a Class Fourth cadet with an orange scarf had begun healing the exhausted cadet that had collapsed before. Kazuki rushed to stand between an opening in the array of the summoned Walls, held out his hands, closed his eyes and imagined a fireball. When he opened his eyes again, a fireball rose out from his palms and hit an imperial trooper that tried to get close. ' _They're all rushing to their deaths_ ' he thought for himself. The spell he had just conjured was one of the most basic spells, Fire RF. Kazuki was just about to conjure Firaga RF-II, a much stronger version of the spell when Naomi appeared next to him in the gap between the Walls. "W-Why did you leave me back there?" Naomi nearly cried out. Kazuki had all forgotten how she hated noise, was easily startled and had frequent panic attacks. He couldn't imagine how hard this was for her. Before he could answer a stray bullet hit Naomi in her arm, and she screamed out. Kazuki dragged her behind one of the Walls, the one held up by the Class Seventh cadet that Kazuki had helped in place. Naomi didn't stop screaming so Kazuki had to drag her out of the frontline and into a back alley.

"Dammit, what the hell is this!?" Kazuki didn't know if he was talking to himself or to Naomi, but she was in so much pain she probably didn't hear him over her own screams. Kazuki didn't know what to do. He could have had the wound fixed up in a few seconds with a simple Cure spell, but what about the bullet still stuck in Naomi's arm? He didn't know if he should just seal the wound with the bullet inside or try to get it out some way, but that would definitively be more painful for her and he didn't know any painkilling spells. He suddenly got an idea and readied his hands for a spell. He closed his eyes, aimed at the wall and imagined a solid ball of ice. When he opened his eyes again, he had shot out a basic Blizzard RF spell, and the ball of ice shattered on the wall, but that was exactly what he wanted. He picked up one of the larger clumps of ice left and put it on Naomi's wound, hoping it would help lessen the pain of what he had to do. She flinched hard when he applied the ice, so Kazuki had to hold her arm still. He moved the ice clump away from the wound itself to get access, got his multitool out from his pocket, folded out the pliers and didn't hesitate to put it into Naomi's wound, causing her to scream and flinch with her entire body. Kazuki only used a moment to get a hold of the bullet and dragged it out. Expanding ammunition, the worst kind. The kind of bullet meant to expand after hitting the target so the bullet would end up exactly like this. After dragging the bullet out, Kazuki let go of everything he held, the multitool and the clump of ice, and focused all he could on conjuring Cure on Naomi's bleeding wound. Like usual, he closed his eyes, held his hands over the wound, and imagined the wound closing. He could feel the wound close under his hands, and when he opened his eyes, he saw Naomi sitting there with heavy breath but clearly calming down.

Not long after, while Kazuki and Naomi were still calming down, no one had said a word. But suddenly they felt something was wrong. They lost what they had seen as their sixth sense, the feeling of magic. All the magic in the air around them disappeared, and moments after they could hear the Wall spells on the frontline shattering like glass, following by the heavy marching of imperial troopers. "Kazuki, what is this?" Naomi asked. "I.. I don't know." he replied, and then they heard screams from the frontline and could observe the cadets being mown down by gunfire. "Shit." Kazuki muttered and dragged Naomi with him further into the back alley with a growing feeling of anxiety. He had not yet grasped the full picture of the situation, but soon they encountered two armed imperial troopers a little ahead of them. Kazuki instantly tried to conjure Firaga RF, a strong fireball spell, but nothing happened, and the troopers had now seen them in the narrow alleyway and were rushing towards them. "Run!" Kazuki said and both turned to run in the opposite direction, towards what used to be the frontline and the end of the main street of Akademeia, but a bullet hit him in his foot and he tumbled over, accidentally dragging Naomi with him. He rolled around and saw the imperials calmly approaching with their rifles and bayonets. One of them aimed his rifle on Naomi, who had started to get up but now sat frozen in place, and the other took aim on Kazuki. He could hear one of them give a short laugh and was disgusted. Who could find pleasure in killing? He closed his eyes and moment later heard a gunshot together with the scream of one of the imperial troopers. He heard a second gunshot and opened his eyes, and there stood Ren, katana in hand.

The three of them broke into the closest house and got the bullet out of Kazuki, who made much less noise than Naomi, even though he had to bandage his wound with his scarf and a piece of wood because they couldn't heal it. "Ren.. I don't know how to thank you." Kazuki said after they had positioned themselves in the basement of the house and locked the upper door. There were no windows in the room, so they had lit an oil lamp to reveal it was the average scrap basement with tools and planks and all kinds of carpenting utilities. A cold "Be more careful next time." was the only reply Kazuki got. Naomi was having a panic attack in the corner, and Kazuki didn't blame her. "What have they done to our magic?" he tried to ask, but Ren only replied "I saw them drop some machine down in the arena just moments before all magic short circuited." Slowly it sank in that this must be a crisis for the entire country. What if no one could use magic anymore? Then Rubrum would be under Militesi control in a few hours. The Militesi Empire… why would they attack Rubrum just out of the blue like this? "Do you think Lord Zhuyu will save us?" they heard Naomi say from the corner. "If there is no magic, Lord Zhuyu is just another helpless citizen." Ren replied. Lord Zhuyu was a Vermilion Bird Primus l'Cie. Each of the four nations in Orience had a magic crystal located in their Peristylium in their capital city. The crystals regularly picked out servants, granting them eternal life and superhuman powers at the cost of their freedom as humans. These servants were called l'Cie, and Kazuki knew there was a l'Cie in Rubrum that was over five hundred years old. L'Cie was categorized as either Primus l'Cie, who mostly had raw attack power and other offensive abilities, and Secundus l'Cie that didn't have the superhuman strength but had other useful abilities. Lord Zhuyu was somewhere between a hundred and two hundred years old, but he had earned himself the title of the strongest l'Cie in Orience. Could he really be neutralized so easily?

None of the three dared to exit the basement, and time went on, they could hear screams, gunfire, cannons, explosions… all the terrible sounds of war. However, suddenly they heard a massive explosion that stood out from the others, followed by something crashing in the sea. "What was that?" Kazuki asked, Ren only shrugged and Naomi seemed to just become more scared of it all. Nobody else knew, but Kazuki had a crush on Naomi, and since they were so close, people had questioned their relationship but only to be met with replies like "We're just friends" or "It's not like that". In the light from the oil lamp, Kazuki couldn't see Naomi's long light brown braid she had her long hair tucked into. His own hair was short and dark brown, nearly black. But the one with true black hair was Ren, who had a long smooth ponytail, pitch black. Surprisingly, it matched his thin and tall body. Like the average citizen of Rubrum, he was a little tanned. Kazuki turned back to Naomi. He wanted to go and console her, but he knew he would only make things worse. Helping Naomi in her earlier panic attacks had never worked out, and he didn't think he could help this time either. No matter, he tried anyway. Kazuki walked over to Naomi and sat down next to her. "Hey.." he tried to make her talk. "We're all going to die." was her reply. "You won't die.." Kazuki didn't want to make any promises he couldn't hold, but he felt like he had to. Naomi began silently crying again, letting out some quiet sobs. Kazuki had no idea what to do, but he wrapped his arm around her back and pulled closer to her. The two of them sat like this and didn't notice Ren leaving the basement and heading up to the first floor of the house. He returned with a whole bread, a knife and a big round cheese. "Are you two hungry or what?" Kazuki hadn't noticed, but he was very hungry. After all, they hadn't eaten the whole day. Suddenly he began thinking what might be happening outside… what if imperial troops are investigating each and every house to see if there are still people left? What if they just set the entire city on fire? Is the government taken captive? "Hello? Are you hungry?" Ren said in a slightly sarcastic voice and Kazuki's mind returned to present time. "Yeah, yeah.." he pushed out. They put the bread and cheese on a block of wood and cut it up. The food was dry, but they couldn't ask for luxuries right now. Kazuki noticed Naomi didn't eat, and he tried to console her by saying "Don't worry Naomi.. when this is all over, Rubrum will stand victorious, we will return to Akademeia and meet our families there.." but Naomi began crying again and managed to get out the words "I can't remember... my parents".

This was one of the many things the crystals did for us. They erased the memories of those who were dead, so we couldn't feel any sadness. A saying went like this: "The memories of the dead are the shackles of the past. We must forget in order to break free". But now it didn't give a feeling of freedom for Naomi to know her parents were dead. Kazuki didn't know how that felt like. He had lost his parents when he was just a baby, but how was it for a sixteen year old to lose her parents? He knew it was a lost cause to try to console Naomi right now, but still it didn't feel right to let her be alone with her misery. "Naomi.." Kazuki reached out to Naomi with his hand, but she suddenly snapped back at him nearly shouting "Leave me alone!" and then she got up and ran off. Out of the basement, and Kazuki and Ren could hear her open the front door and leave. "Is she really that stupid!?" Ren got up and showed the most emotion he had ever shown this day. Kazuki was about to run after her when Ren gestured to him to remain still. "You remain here." Ren was back to his cold demeanor. "But-" Kazuki tried to intercept but was cut off by Ren "Would you rather sacrifice your life for hers, only to find out it was for nothing?" Kazuki understood what he meant.

Naomi ran through the alleyways, hearing gunshot and screaming all around her, both near and distant. She didn't know how long she kept this up, but eventually she found herself in an alley facing an imperial trooper with his terrifying rifle and bayonet. Naomi was practically stunned for a moment, but then set off running in the opposite direction before she heard a gunshot and felt a horrible pain in her back. She screamed as she fell over and hit the ground hard. "Got one." the imperial trooper sounded so cold.. so indifferent. She heard another gunshot, this time from something that made less noise and came opposite direction, then everything faded black. "Hey? Hey, you okay?" Naomi opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was the red skirt of an Agito Cadet uniform. The girl who spoke stood right in front of her, and when she raised her head she could see the girl's face. The girl had short red-brown hair that went down to her shoulders and a confident smile on her face. In addition, instead of the regular scarf she wore a bright red cape. Naomi could also see the straps of a backpack around her shoulders. "Name's Keito, you?" the girl called Keito reached out a hand to help Naomi up. Her wound was gone, and she suspected this girl to have healed her, and as if prompted by her thoughts, Keito said "Don't worry about your wound. It's mostly healed up now." Whatever 'mostly' meant. When Naomi was on her feet, still all shaken up from her near-death experience, she uttered "Naomi", almost so quiet she was unsure if Keito heard her at all, but she heard and loudly proclaimed "Naomi, huh? Well Naomi, consider yourself to be lucky today," Keito's voice was full of confidence. "'Cause if I hadn't been here right now, you'd be frickin' _dead_." With extra pressure on the word 'dead', Keito sure knew how to scare the girl she just saved. They both stood in silence for a moment, when they heard a boy's voice saying "Keito, you there?" followed by another similarly dressed cadet jumping down from the rooftop to Naomi's left. This boy had short chestnut-colored hair and like Keito, didn't wear the usual Agito Cadet scarf but this boy had tied his crimson colored cape in front so it hung down his chest like a tie. "Oh, hi Eito. How did your little... _special operation_ go?" Keito turned to Eito, who rolled his eyes replying "The prisoners were a lost cause. I took a beating for nothing." Naomi couldn't help but remark upon how similar their names were, but how different they spoke. Eito was calm and collected, while Keito was blunt and talked so loud she must have had alerted a dozen militesi troopers by now. Eito's reply seemed to upset Keito a little, judging by her facial expression, but regardless she told him "And say hello to Naomi, I saved her from that imperial trooper over there." Keito nodded over to Naomi and the dead imperial trooper behind her. She hadn't thought much about that. Eito offered a handshake to Naomi, who automatically extended her hand and grabbed his. The boy had a very solid handshake for a person his size. "Hello Naomi, I wish we could have met under better circumstances." "Uh, you too." She did an internal facepalm when she realized what she had just said. But that wasn't new, she just couldn't handle meeting new people like this. Naomi was about to follow up by saying something else but was interrupted by a COMM calling. Eito answered the call "Eito here." Naomi couldn't hear the other voice, but judging on Eito's expression, it was good news, because she could see a smile forming on his face. "Great, I'll be there in twenty minutes." Eito hanged up the call and turned to Keito. "Esu called in. They have taken down the Crystal Jammer unit." And that was followed up by Keito exclaiming "Great!" 'Crystal Jammer'? What were they talking about? Could it be..? "What's a 'Crystal Jammer'?" Naomi asked the duo. "It's some machine the Empire deployed to take down our defenses. I haven't seen it myself, but it creates a field that neutralizes the magic sent out by the Vermilion Bird Crystal. They weren't dumb and deployed it so close to the crystal they neutralized the crystal itself and therefore the entire nation's magic power." Eito explained in a way that Naomi understood perfectly, and moments later she could feel her magic returning. "We're not affected, though. Our magic comes from elsewhere." Keito added, and a pistol of sorts materialized out from thin air in her hand with a bright light, and she began spinning it around her fingers. This was one of the most advanced magic tricks one could master, the ability to store away a weapon and summon it out from thin air when needed. Once mastered, though, the user didn't even need a source of magic to summon his or her weapon. So maybe this ability could still be used when a Crystal Jammer was in effect? Naomi was broken out of her thoughts by Eito exclaiming that he was needed at Akademeia. "I'll be off then." And then Eito set off running, faster than anyone Naomi had ever seen before. Whoever this boy was, she thought, he must be some extraordinary athlete.

Just a few hours after this encounter, the Militesi Empire was successfully repelled from Akademeia, though the rest of Rubrum had fallen meanwhile, and they had lost most of their army. Naomi was reunited with Ren and Kazuki, and the two new Agito Cadets that Naomi had stumbled upon had been enrolled into a new class, Class Zero. Apparently, they were the smallest group, with only twelve members, but their abilities were said to be extraordinary, and Naomi wondered if there would be any struggles between Class Zero and Class First on who was the strongest.

A few days later, Aquamensis XVI 842 RG, Naomi met this girl, Keito, again. This was in one of the many gardens of Akademeia, and she sat on a bench searching for something in her backpack. "Hi Keito." Naomi said while walking down the paved pathway under cherry blossom trees. Keito looked up. "Hey, what's up? Your name was Naomi, right?" Keito sounded just as blunt as when she had encountered her during the initial invasion. "I just wanted to thank you for saving me the other day." Naomi replied with a bow. "Oh, it was nothing. Here, have a seat." Keito moved a little to the side and patted the space next to her on the bench. When Naomi had sat down, Keito was on the topic at once. "So what do you think of Eito. Cute, right?" She had no idea how to answer. "Yeah, sure.." And with that she did another internal facepalm on her stupid response. "I wish I could have been a cadet in times of peace. Y'know, having a normal student life, finding new friends, falling in love.. I think I'm missing out on a lot because of this war." Keito acted like she had known Naomi since childhood. Not that Naomi would complain, Keito was a person she wanted to befriend. "So, are the rumours about Class Zero true?" Naomi finally asked after sitting in silence for a while. "Yep. We haven't been officially registered yet, but we're the newest class of Akademeia." The new girl didn't even seem to consider if this might be information she shouldn't be sharing so openly. Naomi had a question she had thought of for some time. "Is it true that they are deploying the cadets to the war, then?" Naomi asked, a little bit more concerned this time. "Hell if I know. I sure hope not, but things seem to be going in the opposite direction. The consortium must be really desperate to throw us out on the battlefield." That was not the answer Naomi had wished for. "But hey, if we're being deployed to war, I'm at least going to have some fun here in Akademeia first." Keito continued. "Alright. So about Eito.." Naomi started up what was to be a long conversation, and when it was over, it was because Naomi had to hurry to a meeting with the rest of Class First. On the way through the fountain courtyard outside the main building, something sank in. She had made a new friend. She didn't ever think she would make any friends outside her dorm. For both better and worse, this was the beginning of something new.

 **Author notes**  
So this was it. The first chapter of "Ballad of the Nameless Soldier" (The reason for the title is a plot element that will be revealed later). The first work I publish on here. I expect this story to have around ten chapters, more or less depending on how much focus I give on individual events. These three characters, Kazuki, Naomi and Ren are original characters that I have made up. Their names were made up at random, and if the names are present in any other media, that's a coincidence. And note that for the original twelve Class Zero cadets I'll be using their Japanese names instead of their western release names. As always, I'd like to hear your opinion on this story, and especially on how I can improve my storytelling. Thanks for reading.

First published: 28.06.2016  
Some grammar fixes: 08.08.2016


	2. Chapter II

**Weapons of Mass Destruction**

And just when Naomi thought she had seen all the cruelties of the war, she was wrong. Not long after the initial invasion, the Militesi Empire dropped what was probably the strongest bomb ever, the 'Ultima Bomb', and as a result, there were now only three countries in Orience. The Lorican Alliance had been completely annihilated.

A few days later, Naomi was talking to Keito in their usual meeting place in the park on the outskirts of Akademeia where rarely anyone else walked. The date was Aquamensis XXI, the twenty-first day of the second month of the year. Although there were rarely any snow in Rubrum, there was a chilly breeze that morning. "Hi Keito." Naomi said when she arrived at the bench where the two could sit talking for hours. "Our CO is a frickin' jerk." She began. "Oh yeah! Class Zero were officially enrolled as a class today, weren't they?" Naomi was curious how it all had went. "Yeah, and I already hate it." It didn't sound like Keito was up for a positive conversation this time. "One: Our CO beat up Nain. Two: We got to live on campus like you in the other classes." And the complaints kept coming. "Your CO beat up a cadet?" It didn't look like Naomi was really that surprised, but nevertheless it was new to her that a commanding officer would go out and beat a student. "More like thrown into the wall. Then he nearly froze me when I got up to help him. 'Ice Reaper', hmph. He fits that title perfectly." The name surprised Naomi much more than the behavior. "Your CO is the _Ice Reaper_?" She nearly screamed out. "Yeah, anyone you know?" Keito didn't seem to know the fame of her commanding officer. "He is, like, _the_ most fabled warrior around Akademeia. How can you not know him!?" "I'm not from here, duh. And besides, I have something much more important to tell you." Her eyes suddenly got a much more serious look. "I'm being deployed today." Naomi shouldn't have been surprised by this. She already knew that the Agito Cadets were going to be used as last-resort soldiers, but she didn't know that cadets would be sent out so early. "That's.. not going to be fun. Where are you going?" Naomi's voice was noticeably weaker than normal. "Right off our doorstep: McTighe." Keito didn't sound nervous or afraid at all. Didn't seem to consider that this might be their last conversation, because no one knew who would return and who would not. "And Naomi, I _really_ shouldn't be talking about this, but I know Class First will be deployed in just a few weeks."

Kazuki was training in the arena with Ren. Ren didn't seem to have any problem killing these fake Militesi soldiers, not that Kazuki would expect him to have as back during the initial attack on Akademeia, Ren had stricken down two imperial soldiers without second thought. But Kazuki had troubles even attacking these fake soldiers, who was summoned through some magic he couldn't even name. Kazuki closed his eyes and imagined a fireball, and following the regular spellcasting procedure, he had now cast Firaga RF-II, the strongest 'Fire Rifle' spell developed yet. It consisted of three small fireballs that penetrated armor like a hot knife through butter. Two of the fireballs missed the incoming target, one hit the soldier on his waist, causing him to scream and stop running. Cooperating with Ren, his partner came running in from the sidelines with his katana and delivered a slash that instantly 'killed' the soldier. He fell to the ground and disintegrated, like all the other fake enemies summoned by magic in this arena. "You know, we're going up against a lot worse enemies than foot soldiers. The arena masters haven't taken time to visualize the magitek armors we will meet in the field." Ren exclaimed in the following break. "You keep talking like we are all being sent into the war." was Kazuki's reply. "We _are_ cadets. Remember that, Kazu." Ren took a breath, loosened his sheathed sword and began to draw visualizations of what he said in the sand. "A big percent of the main army was killed during the invasion." He was drawing up some simple stick figures that apparently was the army, and then drew a big X over them all. "I hear they are going to launch an attack to reclaim McTighe today. And even in our first mission to reclaim territory, they will be placing a few cadets." This time the drawing was a circle with the text 'McTighe' inside, and a couple of stick figures on the outside. "And when do you think we will be sent out?" Kazuki asked. "Eh, could be tomorrow, could be never. It all depends on how well the cadets do, and how much we are needed." Ren fastened his sheath in his waist belt again, and began walking to the arena exit. "I'm off to the regular class meeting. Are you coming?" Despite having walked a little away from Kazuki, Ren spoke like they were standing right next to each other, and Kazuki didn't hear all the words, but still replied "No, I'm going to practice fighting alone for a while." "Alright, see 'ya later."

'See you later, Naomi. Wish me luck!' was the last thing Keito said to Naomi before she left for her first official deployment as a cadet together with the rest of the newly registered Class Zero. As Naomi had thought, all of Class Zero wore capes instead of the usual scarves, and one of the members even had a full mantle around him. She thought she recognized him from another class, but that probably wasn't the case. Being transferred from one class to another almost never happened, and when the class in question was Class Zero it was even less likely to happen. Therefore, she concluded he was just another cadet that had chose to wear a mantle. Each and every cadet could choose what to wear for class identification, as long as it was the same color and would be easily visible from all sides. A scarf was optimal, but some chose to wear capes, even though the capes had to be knit in front so the color would be visible, and a few got creative with their identification, wearing for example a hat or something else. The creativity were limited by that the standard uniform had to remain unaltered, so there was no attending to Akademeia in a bright cyan shirt for class identification. A second limitation was that cadets would have to make or buy these other ways of identification themselves, while Akademeia handed the scarves out for free. While all these thoughts circled around Naomi's head, Kazuki sneaked behind her. A light push and a very sudden "Hello" was enough to make Naomi scream out in shock, causing everyone in the corridor to turn to look.

After the incident, Naomi had ran to her dorm and locked the door. She absolutely hated getting attention, and just as much she hated looking stupid in front of people she didn't know. No thanks to Kazuki had both of these happened simultaneously. Not even a minute after locking the door and hiding under her blanket someone tried to open the door, and after realizing it was locked, began knocking. "Hey, Naomi. Sorry for that, I didn't intend to." She didn't feel like answering Kazuki and remained silent. "Naomi? Please answer." And she didn't even feel bad for how him. He sounded genuinely sad, but he could just be. There was no mercy from Naomi Mizutsu today. He kept knocking and shouting for her, but there was no reply. No reply from dorm VII, at least. The door next to his opened, and there came the two 'top' Class First cadets: Satoshi and Mani, otherwise known as 'the magic-obsessed nerd with the messy black hair' and 'the blonde who have slept with half of the guys at Akademeia'. Of course, these were both exaggerations, but weren't very far from the truth. What could be discussed, however, was how the two of them got along so well. The look Satoshi gave Kazuki clearly stated 'What did you do _this_ time' but he didn't say a word. "Finally told her and got locked out?" Mani asked him with a very mocking voice. If she hadn't been his friend, he would have said a thing or two about _her_ love life, but he swallowed the words and only said "I accidently scared her and now she hates me". "So you still haven't told her? Damn, you're so _slow_." Mani rolled her eyes and turned to Satoshi. "Say something for once. And say something _human understandable_." Satoshi mumbled something back that only Mani heard. "Why not? Not my fault he is so slow to confess love." Mani complained to him, only to get an angry look back. Kazuki didn't feel like talking with them right now, but he didn't want to just leave them while they were trying to talk to him, so he just stood there for a few moments, wondering what to do. "So, Kazuki… Are you ever going to tell her what you feel?" Mani asked with a voice that was less mocking and more like the voice that could be expected from a friend who actually _tries_ to help. "Can we just _not_ talk about this right now?" He didn't feel like getting love tips from Mani right now, or at any time for that sake. At some point, maybe. But not for the time being. There were nearly ten seconds of silence before Satoshi broke it by asking Kazuki if he wanted to join in on this strategy board game he was playing with Mani. He had no reason to turn the offer down.

' _Just what I needed…_ ' Naomi thought for herself after hearing the conversation in the hallway outside. After all the stress these last days, hearing that her own roommate was in love with her wasn't something she wanted to hear. She was way too tired of all this and just went to weep silently under her blanket and eventually fell asleep.

The strategy game turned out to be fun. Even Mani seemed to enjoy it, and usually, she was not the girl for games. The board consisted of a map of a battlefield divided up into paths of tiles, with one character taking up one tile. Satoshi currently had his character in a path in the northern forest, while Mani were the queen of the castle and Kazuki trying to take down said queen. He rolled the dice and got three. He moved his character three steps towards the castle, getting Mani in his range of attack. Of course, she could also attack back when it was her turn. "I use Fire RF-II" And with that, Kazuki removed 55 out of 100 'Mana Points' from his character card, and he would recover 5 each turn. Meanwhile Mani was busy taking 'Health Points' pieces off her character card. Kazuki could have used Firaga RF-II and taken her out, but that didn't seem fun to him, so instead he used this attack so she was forced to flee from the castle and give up her defense bonus. The castle consisted of one big tile that was actually nine tiles in a square combined into one, and that signified a 'capture point' that could be occupied by any character for a bonus, but never two at the same time. One had to be thrown out for the next to take it. Satoshi ruled over a smaller capture point consisting of only one tile in the forest, and that point granted the occupier a line of sight bonus. Perhaps it was meant like the character got better view from climbing up into a tree? But at least, he was camping out there and nobody dared get close because he could attack them without them being able to attack him, if not anyone could roll the dice and get a high number to get close in one turn, that is. "Aw come on, is nobody going to even attempt taking me down?" Satoshi complained. "Don't worry, I'll come get you once I get the 'Avoid' spell." Mani reassured him. To unlock a spell, a character either had to kill another character with the spell, easily stealing all the spells that character had and knocking him or her out of the game, or the easier way, 'betting'. Betting was a complicated thing that took up a player's turn, and easily summarized, there was a dice for each spell to unlock, the dices ranging from three-sided to twenty-sided, depending on what spell. Avoid had seven sides. And for all dices, there was only one side that would gain the user the spell. Avoid was a spell that could be cast at the end of one's turn - like all other spells - and it made the player dodge one attack the next turn, but that didn't include volleys, so for example, if Kazuki attacked her with a Firaga RF, that would be three fireballs, she would avoid one but be hit by the remaining two. But if then Satoshi attacked her, she would not dodge the second spell. Taking down Satoshi was an important task right now, because he was camping out in the forest, betting on spell after spell and he was beginning to build up a dangerous arsenal. But he would lose, because Mani had a plan.

Meanwhile, outside Naomi, Kazuki and Ren's dorm, someone was knocking on the door. Naomi didn't feel like opening until she heard a girl's voice shouting for her. "You in there, Naomi?" It was Keito. She ran and opened the door, and saw that Eito was standing there as well. If he hadn't been there, Naomi would probably have hugged Keito the moment she opened the door, but it didn't feel right when he was right next to her. "You're okay?" She asked instead. "Well, duh. It was only McTighe. The combat itself didn't last more than an hour." Keito hadn't changed the slightest. Either she was strong willed and wasn't affected by the cruelties of war, or she was so cold-blooded she didn't care. Naomi guessed it was a mix of the two. "And how was your first mission under your CO?" Naomi tried to ask, only for Keito to roll her eyes and reply that he hadn't moved his butt out from Akademeia during the entire mission. "Oh, so he didn't beat you up or freeze you alive this time?" And with that, Naomi was mostly in a happy mood again. Her mood swings had only gotten worse lately, but in the little time she had known Keito, she had gained a trust for her and her comrades, especially Eito. There were some members of the class she had only seen in passing or heard about, though, so she didn't know what to think of them. Eito spoke up with a chuckling "Heh, I guess you heard about the 'incident' when we enrolled?" Obviously talking about the Ice Reaper's violent altitude. But after Eito's comment, the mood suddenly became grim as Keito changed the subject. "So, Naomi, about your deployment…" She didn't want to know what came next, but she could guess from how her heartbeat sped up and from the chill that ran down her spine. "Mother told us about Operation Reconquista, and I asked her about who would participate…" Keito looked up and stared directly into Naomi's eyes. She didn't even need to know what Keito said, she had already guessed it. "You're being deployed." Naomi took a few steps back. "But-" She couldn't finish before they were interrupted by a loud cheering from the dorm next, loud enough to penetrate through the sound-isolating magic and be clearly heard. Neither Eito nor Keito seemed affected by this. "There are no buts, Naomi." Eito coldly reminded her. "Neither you nor me can decide when we want to fight or not. None of us will survive this war with clean hands." With this statement, Naomi sat down on her bed. It was true, she wasn't getting out of this with clean hands. She would have to bloody them if she wanted to survive. Naomi began going over fictional scenarios of battle in her head, and when she emerged from her dream world, she saw that she was alone in the room. ' _Alone_ ' she thought. ' _I'm alone_ '. That started up another train of thoughts, in which she realized she was really alone: Her parents were dead. Her sister was dead. Her classmates couldn't get her out of this mess, nor could her newfound Class Zero friends. Even her CO wouldn't be willing to defy his orders in order to help her out. Her last thought before getting up from the bed was how she would look down at her hands after this had calmed down. Either she would be dead and wouldn't be able to look at her hands, or they would be dirty and stained in blood. The most terrifying thing about all this was that the blood wasn't going to be hers.

 **Author notes  
** So that was it. The second chapter. The reason for this super-late update is that I spent most of the summer visiting my family in Chile, with few chances to write. I hope to get out the next part in less than half the time this one took. Also: I now have an actual thumbnail. Thanks to Kuro-Mai for letting me use her artwork. Look her up on DeviantArt to see the full picture and her other drawings. (Just for the record, the placeholder thumbnail (which I also use as my profile picture) was from a school project last winter.)

Thanks for reading, and I'd appreciate if you could point out grammar mistakes I haven't found. I'm not a native English speaker, so I probably have some mistakes here and there. And even better would be some feedback on my way of writing.

First published: 28.09.2016


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